Weapons & Equip Summoner still has progression issues

Terru

Terrarian
There are a few more summoner weapons, the summoner did get buffed a bit and the whips exist, buuuut the progression for summoner in general is still unclear and scarce compared to other classes. Only one pre-hardmode armor, no accessories and very few summons, in hardmode a newcomer might not at all know that you need to go back to the spider biome to get the early starting armor for summoner, which you're stuck with until you get to after plantera or the pumpkin moon. I don't really count the dungeon defenders gear either because they don't really improve your minions, just turrets, being a bit more niche. There are some weapons, but even those are gotten from more niche places or have rare drop rates, like blood moon fishing, pirates or a random drop from hallow enemies. The summoner absolutely NEEDS more tiers of equipment to balance out the progression, armor especially and possibly more summoner weapons.

Edit: I am now aware that the hallowed armor has a helmet for summoner. This is absolutely a step in the right direction. No more are you forced to use spider armor to fight the plantera or other bosses. I am aware of the dungeon defender tier 2 armors, but once again, I feel that they're more niche, having to use a specific type of turret to make the most of them, plus you get only more sentry slots and not minion slots, but I feel like that's just mostly my own opinion on it. Even then, the hallowed armor is BEFORE the dungeon defenders armor, which to me sounds like the dungeon defenders is the same tier, a more sidegrade type of deal right now.
 
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I agree! Summoner still lacks content somehow... Yeah they added content for the summoner class but bruh the new items is super hard to get (e.g. the Terraprisma)

If they will add more content and things to the summoner class then I (or all of us...?) can finally say that the game is really complete.
 
Summoners do have a lot less items than other 'classes' in Terraria, so adding items such as an armor set in early game, and more weapons pre-hardmode would be excellent.
Thematically, to go with the Slime Staff, we could have a slime armor variant of the wood armor, wherein it maybe increases your number of minions by 1 or 2, and slightly buffs minions.
Of course many more items could be added and could fit, it would benefit the low variable class that the summoner is.
 
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Been talking about this issue in multiple threads, Reddit and in Discord for awhile now but yes despite Summoners being in a MUCH better place compared to previously it still feels like an incomplete class. I personally tried doing a Solo-Summoner run so you can see my Pre-Hardmode thoughts here as I think this is where Summoners fall apart in terms of viability.

Your main starting weapon is the Finch Staff which isn't even guaranteed to be obtained from Living Wood Chests. Meaning that even if one, spawned Living Wood Trees can be as random as near spawn to as far away as right before the Ocean. The only alternative at this point is the Slime Staff which is notoriously hard to get and the Leather Whip can only be obtained by having 10% Completion on the Bestiary.

I personally found Snapthorn to carry hard but post Skeletron the whip drops off fast. The Hornet Staff is absolute garbage only dealing 7 Damage and most enemies in the game being immune to Poison. The Vampire Frog Staff comes from the Blood Moon which is incredibly RNG dependent but even if you do get the Blood Moon fighting the enemies to get it is painful as all hell as on Master Mode the Zombie Merman alone boasts 1200 HP (I'm not going to get over this. Why does it have that much). and even then it's still RNG dependent if you get one.

So basically in terms of Summons go the natural power progression of Summons pre-hardmode is Finch Staff > Imp Staff. That's the equivalent of going from the Spear to the Fiery Greatsword for Melee like what the hell?

In hardmode it's actually so much better like my god. The new Enchanted Sword Summon is a godsend early and farming for the Cool Whip allows you to progress through a good part of Pre-Plantera without much trouble.

Also I think you're underselling the Eterian Summoner armor quite a bit or at the very least the Squire Set. Getting the Squire Armor and just going Ballista Cane + Cool Whip is a valid strategy and even more so later on with Valhalla Knight and Morning Star as I find it easier to get than Kaleidoscope. Sure you're not playing as a Beast Tamer-ish and more Belmont Castlevania-ish but it's surprisingly fun. If only whips had more innate knockback to help.
 
Beside I agree that pre hardmode summoner has progression issues, little addendum: There is a Hallowed Set for hardmode Summoner.
At least on hardmode, the gap has been quite filled, as for pre hardmode... And yep, the Hornet Staff is quite disappointing, and not even the Queen Bee expert accessory seems to make it better.
 
Been talking about this issue in multiple threads, Reddit and in Discord for awhile now but yes despite Summoners being in a MUCH better place compared to previously it still feels like an incomplete class. I personally tried doing a Solo-Summoner run so you can see my Pre-Hardmode thoughts here as I think this is where Summoners fall apart in terms of viability.

Your main starting weapon is the Finch Staff which isn't even guaranteed to be obtained from Living Wood Chests. Meaning that even if one, spawned Living Wood Trees can be as random as near spawn to as far away as right before the Ocean. The only alternative at this point is the Slime Staff which is notoriously hard to get and the Leather Whip can only be obtained by having 10% Completion on the Bestiary.

I personally found Snapthorn to carry hard but post Skeletron the whip drops off fast. The Hornet Staff is absolute garbage only dealing 7 Damage and most enemies in the game being immune to Poison. The Vampire Frog Staff comes from the Blood Moon which is incredibly RNG dependent but even if you do get the Blood Moon fighting the enemies to get it is painful as all hell as on Master Mode the Zombie Merman alone boasts 1200 HP (I'm not going to get over this. Why does it have that much). and even then it's still RNG dependent if you get one.

So basically in terms of Summons go the natural power progression of Summons pre-hardmode is Finch Staff > Imp Staff. That's the equivalent of going from the Spear to the Fiery Greatsword for Melee like what the hell?

In hardmode it's actually so much better like my god. The new Enchanted Sword Summon is a godsend early and farming for the Cool Whip allows you to progress through a good part of Pre-Plantera without much trouble.

Also I think you're underselling the Eterian Summoner armor quite a bit or at the very least the Squire Set. Getting the Squire Armor and just going Ballista Cane + Cool Whip is a valid strategy and even more so later on with Valhalla Knight and Morning Star as I find it easier to get than Kaleidoscope. Sure you're not playing as a Beast Tamer-ish and more Belmont Castlevania-ish but it's surprisingly fun. If only whips had more innate knockback to help.
I didn't even get a living tree in my world...
 
The blood moon fishing drops are insanely rare and difficult to obtain for their power level
This, the Dreadnautilus destroys you in 3 hits most with the best gear you can get before defeating plantera (at which point the summoner weapon that it drops is underpowered)

I didn't even get a living tree in my world...
neither did i lmao, couldnt get a summoner weapon until queen bee was defeated lmao

The new Enchanted Sword Summon
What do you mean by this?
 
This, the Dreadnautilus destroys you in 3 hits most with the best gear you can get before defeating plantera (at which point the summoner weapon that it drops is underpowered)
neither did i lmao, couldnt get a summoner weapon until queen bee was defeated lmao
What do you mean by this?
Please don't triple post like this. If you have more content to add, use the edit button below your first post. I've merged them this time, please don't do it again.
 
What do you mean by this?
I got lucky and found the Blade Staff which is a new Summon Weapon from the Enchanted Sword. Each Summon only deals 6 Damage which is low for HM on paper but it comes with the ability to ignore 25 enemy armor. Stack that with Sharktooth Necklace and Summon Tag damage from Whips and most enemies in HM that depend on high def for survivabilty get shredded.
 
I got lucky and found the Blade Staff which is a new Summon Weapon from the Enchanted Sword. Each Summon only deals 6 Damage which is low for HM on paper but it comes with the ability to ignore 25 enemy armor. Stack that with Sharktooth Necklace and Summon Tag damage from Whips and most enemies in HM that depend on high def for survivabilty get shredded.
Oh i thought you meant the terraprisma at first but then i read "pre-plantera" and i had no idea what you were talking about
 
New to the forums created an account purely for this thread so please excuse my lack of post etiquette.

I feel like in general summoners have gotten the short end of the stick and aren't really viable at all. Last night I decided to mess around and slay Moon Lord on my summoner to test out the new Stardust Armor change and just realized that without having other players to play with summoners are just so underpowered in solo play. The moment I switched to my warrior it was just such a noticeable performance difference and really highlighted how squishy summoners actually are. "Just get better at dodging things" is also too much to ask considering how a lot of the enemies (cough crawlipede and other pillar mobs) and bosses have some crazy hard to avoid movement patterns that on top of that do like 1/4th to 1/2 of your health lol. It really sucks considering they are my favorite class. Honestly, if late-game (Post Plantera perhaps) summoner armor was given a bit more defense I think they'd perform a lot better in solo play.
 
Preaching to the choir but yes, the summoner needs more work besides progression. The whips are not an addition I greatly enjoy, especially if you want the minions to attack something in specific. You're usually gonna use the whip to protect yourself, but as a summoner you don't want to be close to the enemies at all, due to how squishy you are. I tried to farm wall of flesh in hardmode early game, equipped with spiders, the new dagger summon and pirates in expert mode. The only summon that worked well at all were the spiders. The whip was useless since I wanted my minions to target the wall of flesh, not the worms or mouths. The pirates were only good when the maw decided to be on the platforms, and if it wasn't, they kept trying to jump at the wall of flesh, doing minimal damage. Daggers overall didn't have that much range and the damage was miniscule, worst so far. The spiders were the only ones that were remotely good at killing the wall of flesh, and only when manually targeting the wall of flesh itself, making the whip useless. By early hardmode I mean I have not defeated the mechanical bosses, only the new slime boss.
 
Looking through the wiki, I realised that the hallowed summoner armor has 10% minion damage, +3 minions and 27 defense, while the spider armor has 28% minion damage, +3 minions and 20 defense.. why does the hallowed summoner armor have LESS MINION DAMAGE THAN THE SPIDER ARMOR?! I get the extra defense, sure, but 7 is not that big of a difference, atleast in my opinion, and that damage lost feels like it would really hurt..
 
Looking through the wiki, I realised that the hallowed summoner armor has 10% minion damage, +3 minions and 27 defense, while the spider armor has 28% minion damage, +3 minions and 20 defense.. why does the hallowed summoner armor have LESS MINION DAMAGE THAN THE SPIDER ARMOR?! I get the extra defense, sure, but 7 is not that big of a difference, atleast in my opinion, and that damage lost feels like it would really hurt..

I think it's because the invincibility effect is so good. Back when it was part of Titanium armor, a lot of people would use Titanium armor right up until the Moon Lord forthe set bonus.

It did really hurt damage for me when I used it, but it let me get a lot closer for whip use than Spider Armor (which I was dying in all the time), so with a good whip like Durendal I felt like it was a worthwhile trade.
 
Looking through the wiki, I realised that the hallowed summoner armor has 10% minion damage, +3 minions and 27 defense, while the spider armor has 28% minion damage, +3 minions and 20 defense.. why does the hallowed summoner armor have LESS MINION DAMAGE THAN THE SPIDER ARMOR?! I get the extra defense, sure, but 7 is not that big of a difference, atleast in my opinion, and that damage lost feels like it would really hurt..
You kind of forgot about the greaves giving 7% to all damage types, but yeah... Still low damage.
And as Math says, there's the invincibility effect, but that certainly isn't an excuse for the set to have such low damage bonus, the other damage types gives more damage bonus compared to the previous sets.
 
You kind of forgot about the greaves giving 7% to all damage types, but yeah... Still low damage.
And as Math says, there's the invincibility effect, but that certainly isn't an excuse for the set to have such low damage bonus, the other damage types gives more damage bonus compared to the previous sets.
Actually it kind of is, considering what I've heard about Titanium's abusable set bonus before it moved to Hallowed, which I never really used myself. No class benefits from it more than Summoner, either, considering your job is basically to stay out of the way and let the minions do the work. Shadow Dodge/Holy Protection is SCARY good for Summoner, at least on paper. It might not be quite Valhalla armor but it'll probably do the job. I'll find out soon, anyway.
 
Actually it kind of is, considering what I've heard about Titanium's abusable set bonus before it moved to Hallowed, which I never really used myself. No class benefits from it more than Summoner, either, considering your job is basically to stay out of the way and let the minions do the work. Shadow Dodge/Holy Protection is SCARY good for Summoner, at least on paper. It might not be quite Valhalla armor but it'll probably do the job. I'll find out soon, anyway.
You talk like as if everyone who plays as summoner lets the summons do the battle while the summoner runs away from nearby monsters while doing nothing.
 
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